1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a letter composition and delivery system. More particularly, the present invention relates to letter composition and delivery as well as collection and interpretation of data obtained via the letter composition and delivery process.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's highly commercialized society, consumers are offered seemingly unlimited choices. While it may seem that this diversity of products and services only serves to benefit consumers, consumers often have a difficult time selecting among the vast assortment of options available to them. Today's consumer is bombarded by advertisements while driving, watching television, listening to the radio, and even while surfing the Internet. However, the information typically provided in such advertisements is sorely inadequate. Thus, even when a consumer expends an enormous amount of money on an item or service, the consumer's selection is often made based upon very limited information. Although a consumer's individual experience with regard to a particular product or service is a potential source of valuable information to other consumers, it is difficult if not impossible to disseminate this information to a wide range of consumers or potential consumers. It would therefore be beneficial if consumers could benefit from the very valuable experiences of other consumers. Accordingly, it would be desirable if consumers could communicate their opinions to other consumers and potential consumers.
In addition to having information accessible to make informed decisions, consumers often value the opportunity to communicate their opinions, questions and suggestions to businesses. However, writing a letter is a time-consuming process. Moreover, it is often difficult if not impossible to identify the appropriate individual within a business or company to whom a letter should be addressed. Another problem arises when the business is a foreign business and therefore conducts business in a language other than that spoken by the consumer. As a result, consumers are often discouraged from sending letters to businesses regarding good or bad experiences, suggestions, or questions. Even when a consumer does decide to send a letter to a company, it is often difficult to discern whether the letter was received by the business and therefore difficult to achieve resolution of the situation that prompted the letter. It would therefore be beneficial if a system could be established which would facilitate and track the composition and delivery of a letter to a business as the resolution of the situation that prompted the letter.
In order to successfully offer a wide variety of choices to today's consumer, businesses often expend large sums of money on advertisements and consumer research. Typically, businesses perform surveys to obtain valuable consumer opinions regarding the products or services offered by them. In addition, these businesses often purchase consumer information from sources such as organizations that independently perform such surveys. However, these surveys are not initiated by consumers and therefore are not likely to obtain information from those who might provide the most valuable feedback to businesses. Moreover, such surveys are tedious and time-consuming to complete. It would therefore be beneficial if a consumer could quickly and easily communicate his or her opinions and experiences to these businesses upon initiation by the consumer through a more sophisticated data gathering process than the traditional consumer survey. It is also important to note that the data obtained from such surveys is not typically made available to consumers. Thus, it would be desirable if a consumer could access information such as consumer ratings obtained as a result of such communications. Moreover, it would be desirable if such communications could be made in a manner so as to promote a response by the business to the consumer.
The Internet has recently become a popular information resource for even the most unsophisticated computer user. The popularity of the Internet as an information source is due, in part, to the vast amount of available information that can be downloaded by almost anyone having access to a computer and a modem. The Internet's strength also lies in its open-ended nature. These and other factors have caused an exponential increase in Internet to usage and with it, an exponential increase in the volume of information available. However, even with the vast amount of information and services available on the Internet, there fails to be an effective mechanism for facilitating the communication of information between consumers and businesses. In addition, businesses have seemingly failed to recognize the potential word of mouth influence a consumer has in view of the rising popularity of the Internet and electronic mail. It would therefore be desirable to leverage the power and accessibility of the Internet to facilitate the exchange of information among consumers and businesses.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable if a mechanism for facilitating communication from consumers to businesses could be established. Similarly, it would be beneficial if a counterpart mechanism could be established to promote responses from businesses to consumers in response to consumer communications. In addition, it would be beneficial if consumer data could be obtained through this communication process. Moreover, it would be desirable if these mechanisms could be implemented on the Internet to facilitate communication between consumers and businesses as well as the information gathering process.